Zozulya

Pale green flesh is crisp with a mild, refreshing sweetness. Average skin thickness. Straight, dark green fruits with a light green starburst pattern on the blossom end. Sparse presence of white spines. Market mature fruits average 10-12" long and 2-3" wide. Low to moderate vigor when grown in 2024 at Heritage Farm. This variety is partially parthenocarpic and may produce few or no viable seeds in the absence of pollinators. Early-mid season maturing. This is one of several Soviet-era varieties that Debbie Premus (OH PR D2) of Lebanon, Ohio, has stewarded for the past 30 years. Debbie received the seeds as gifts from Irina Bagmout during a trip Debbie made to the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Debbie is a second-generation Slav-American and during her college years, became interested in learning about her ancestors’ culture and studied Russian. Coincidentally, she met Valery Bagmout, a Soviet citizen who was taking part in the 1989 “Global Walk for a Livable World” across the US. This walk made a stop in her hometown, and Debbie and Valery became close friends. He invited her to visit him and his family in Moscow in the summer of 1991. During this trip, Valery’s mother, Irina, learned that Debbie had an interest in gardening and seed saving, so she put together a package of seeds from varieties she grew in her dacha in the city of Bryansk, about 400 km SW of Moscow. Debbie later donated the varieties to SSE in 2021. SSE Accession # 133881